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Katya Gorchinskaya, deputy editor of the newspaper KyivPost, has published on Facebook photographs (see below) of a report that journalists are calling “Putin's plan for annexing Ukraine.” There is no date on the leaked document—indeed, there is nothing to identify the source or even the addressee—but the text suggests it was authored sometime in late December 2013. Titled “About the Crisis in Ukraine,” the paper outlines a six-point plan for deploying Russian armed troops to all of “Russian Ukraine” (including the country's capital, Kiev) to bring an end to the “fascist-banderovtsy and other extremist elements.” The plan called for (now former) President Victor Yanukovich requesting Russian intervention as a legal pretext for Russian peacekeepers. In March 2014, Russia's UN envoy revealed that Yanukovich did eventually make this appeal to Moscow. By that time, however, he'd already been deposed.

What follows are some excerpts from the document posted by Gorchinskaya.

[...] only by entering all the territories of Ukraine's Russian regions (specifically Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Dnepropetrovsk, Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov, Kiev, Kherson, Nikolaev, [and] Odessa) into the Russian Federation can we gaurantee peace, security, and prosperity for our population, as well as the reliable protection of Russia's interests.

Realizing this task can only be accomplished by establishing control over the Mother of Russian Cities, the capital of Ukraine, the city of heroes, Kiev. Analysis of the events of 1994 (Leonid Kuchma's treachery), 2004 (the so-called Orange Revolution), and 2013 (the thugs now rioting in Kiev) attests to the fact that dependable guarantees of control over the city are possible only by way of deploying the armed forces, police, and intelligence agencies of the Russian Federation.

It is necessary to neutralize the most prominent members of the Banderov opposition. The whole world, including those in Kiev, need to see the true face of Ukrainian fascism. To accomplish this, we must facilitate the collection and documentation of facts showing the atrocities and outrages committed by the rioters and the Svoboda party, and also by the extremist group Right Sector.

This kyiv “paper” isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Those “journalist” are clearly fearful of receiving the Panteleymonov treatment. The Russian Ruble suffered trying to bail out Ukraine, moreover, Russia has insisted that Ukraine must now look to the IMF for their money considering how Russian money was stolen by Ukraine. The Ukraine mess is ours now. I have no doubt they will on planes bound for Britain ready to milk social security.

This post is part of RuNet Echo, a Global Voices project to interpret the Russian language internet. All Posts · Learn more